Close
by Mossberg
Summary: Mark is a self-conscious young man. Can he and the girl he's been in love with since high school live through the collapse of Raccoon City?
1. The Storage Room

**  
Close  
**

**3:00 PM**

Mark followed the shopkeeper and the teenage girl down into the basement of the convenience store. The entire store had been looted ahead of time already, and the shopkeeper didn't do anything to stop it. Aisles and displays were knocked over. Bottles, plastic wrappers, empty boxes, and various junk lay all over the wooden floor. In addition to the disarray, there was a strange thickness to the air that was heightened by the yellow overhead lights and dead heat inside. Mark had been on the street when he'd seen the girl go into the store, and he knew her so he followed her inside. The shopkeeper had a shotgun in his hands and he was telling them there were no more supplies. The girl was crying that she couldn't find her parents, and Mark couldn't speak he was so bewildered by everything that was happening. The shopkeeper kept telling them he couldn't help them, that they should leave while there was still time, but someone began screaming outside, and there were gunshots. The shopkeeper said that the dead ones had finally come and found the people on this street. He told Mark and the girl that they had to get downstairs quickly, but the girl was crying and she tried to leave, so the shopkeeper took her arm and forcibly took her into the back of the store and down into the basement. She didn't put up any violent resistance but she was very distraught and confused as she was forced down into the dark hallway. She kept looking back to Mark, and past him to the stairs leading back into the store.

"Get in this room and lock the door. There's food and water, and you can stay inside until the military comes. Don't let anyone in, anyone! You hear me? Hey, are you listening?" The shopkeeper was holding the girl by both arms and talking to her face to face, but she wasn't looking at him. He put her inside the storage room, and then took Mark by the arm and pushed him in.

"You take care of her. Don't let anything happen! Don't let anything open this door!" He said to Mark, as if the girl were his own daughter. He stared right into Mark's eyes… scaring Mark more shitless than he already was. And then the door abruptly shut in Mark's face.

After what had to be an endless couple of minutes in the small room, there were gunshots from upstairs, followed by screaming. The screaming lasted for several seconds and heightened, then stopped suddenly. That was the end of the shopkeeper.

In the small, dimly lit room the girl was silent, and so was Mark. They could only hear each other's rapid and shallow breathing, each trying to make it as quiet as possible, but not succeeding. Mark worried his heart was going to pump its way out of his ribcage.

From upstairs, there was the sound of things falling over and faintly, very faintly, of moaning. Though he hadn't seen any yet, Mark knew what those things upstairs were. They were corpses that could walk, and see, and couldn't be bargained or reasoned with. They were monsters, and they spread their disease like wildfire.

He stopped, finally realizing the situation and where he was. Quickly leaning towards the door and fiddling with the knob, he locked it and breathed a sigh, though a cold sweat was still present all over his back and forehead. The door was metal, and looked like it was strong. Mark turned around and faced the girl.

She was staring at the ground, and when she noticed he was looking at her she looked up. She was Stacey, Stacey Parks, though Mark didn't like to admit to himself that he knew her last name, too. They only had one class together in RC High, and they had never spoken, but he knew her and he thought about her. She had dark brown hair that came down to her shoulders, and she never wore it in a ponytail. Her eyes were dark green, and they reminded him of looking down at the tops of a forest of pine trees. Her dark features and fair white skin were what made her stand out to him. She was his height or a little below it, but she seemed tall anyway. She had many friends that Mark did not like, that he felt alienated from, that he couldn't approach, but he tried from to time. Stacey was beautiful to him, though he could never speak to her or be close to her. He just couldn't, he was too shy and too weak around girls he liked. His liking of her eventually turned to longing, which turned into regret. He knew he could never approach her and just strike up conversation. He knew he couldn't just 'handle it' like his handful of friends told him to. And now, and now here he was with Stacey in this room. They might die in here, together, but he couldn't even bring himself to speak.

"Is that man dead?" Stacey asked. Mark was standing stiffly, his hands like lead pipes down his sides knowing she was staring right at him and judging his looks, what he would say, how tough he was.

"Yes."

"I… I've got to find my mom and dad." She said, getting up and putting her hands on the doorknob. Mark didn't know what to do. She unlocked the door and opened it ajar before he pushed it back shut.

"Don't go out there!" Mark's voice cracked, his hand on the door. Suddenly he realized he'd kind of yelled. "P… please. I'm sorry."

Stacey's eyes narrowed slightly and it looked like they'd grown darker as she turned the doorknob and pulled the door open again. "I have to find my parents! They might be in trouble!" She said, agitated at the stiff and skinny looking boy in her way. Mark was getting distressed, and he slammed the door shut this time before she opened it half way.

"The zombies are right outside! If you go out there they will fucking eat you!"

Stacey stared at Mark for a moment, not knowing what to make of the boy, and then she pushed him. "Fuck you! I've got to go find my parents!" She tried to open the door a third time, but Mark slammed it shut again and kept his arm on the door, his anger overtaking the self-consciousness.

"Your parents are dead!" He said, his entire body tensed like a balled up fist. Stacey looked up at him and her eyes were glassy and wet. She quickly looked away and down, turning Mark's tension to nothing, as he felt terrible. He opened his mouth to say sorry, but he knew it wouldn't mean anything. So he didn't say it. She turned around and sat on one of the boxes of supplies, folding her arms and looking at the floor, her facial very taught as she tried to control herself and not cry. For a few minutes her gaze went right through the concrete, as Mark's words sunk in. Her parents _were _dead.

"Maybe they aren't… maybe they're somewhere." Mark said, uncomfortable with the silence now. He leaned against the door like an uprooted tree against a building. Stacey didn't respond. Things stayed like that for a while before Mark heard noises in the hallway outside the room. Stacey looked up slowly. Mark quickly stood up straight and turned around, remembering to lock the door again. He'd forgotten all this time that it wasn't locked.

They listened as they heard footsteps pass by, uneven steps. One leg dragged behind the other slightly, but not uniformly. There wasn't a set pause between each step. Not like conscious human footsteps. They didn't stop as they walked by, and subsequently went by again and then stopped right in front of the door. Mark stared at the door, every nerve ending in his body buzzing as his balls literally shrank. Then he felt Stacey's arm brush his as she stood up. He felt panicked, and looked around for a weapon, anything blunt or sharp. But there was nothing in the room, just boxes and aa couple of crates. They didn't have anything to defend themselves with if the door didn't hold.

Stacey quickly turned and bent down, putting her arms around a wooden crate. Mark turned from the door and saw her trying to pull the crate away from the wall. He leaned down and took grasp of it, seeing Stacey's desperation as her arms shook trying to move the crate. Together they moved it in front of the door, and immediately there was a rasping. It was human fingernails scraping against an unpainted steel door. Mark moved back away, and so did Stacey. They stared in silence. A moan came from the other side, a long, sad and very uncomfortable moan that went right through Mark's bowels. It made a stream of cold sweat suddenly fall down from his armpit and it lifted the hair on the back of his neck. It was the moan of someone that wasn't alive, wasn't thinking, wasn't aware of anything. For what must have been half an hour, they stood there as the rasping eventually stopped, and the footsteps went away.

"Who are you?" Stacey asked, as they had been sitting in silence again.

"Mark."

"I already knew your name, I mean I wanted to know who you are. What are you doing now? …What were you going to do I mean."

"I was… going to go to college. A college in Wisconsin, I was going to leave Raccoon City. How did you already know my name?" Mark brought up his head from his chest and his elbows from his knees.

"We had Algebra together. I remember you were always so quiet, I never saw you outside of class."

"Oh, I didn't know you saw me in class."

"Yeah…" Stacey said, her voice trailing off. Mark didn't want to stop talking.

"Your parents, you said you had to find them."

"My parents… oh God…" She leaned forward. Mark suddenly felt bad for bringing them up.

"You don't-"

"I was supposed to meet them, cause dad called up and told me to wait for him at the Police Department. I was about to leave from my job when he called. But I got lost, and there was a ton of people going in every direction so I stopped and began asking people for directions, but no one would stop to tell me. Everyone was panicking…" She paused. "Then I came in here to see if the store owner could tell me how to get to Police Station from here, and he just took me downstairs and I looked back, and saw you. But that guy wouldn't…"

Mark nodded while staring at the wall, the only thing he could really do.

Stacey sighed, looking up at the ceiling and rubbing her palms on her knees. Mark noticed she kept doing that, rubbing her palms on her knees. Her voice sounded more hurt as she started again,

"My brother is with my parents. He…" She stopped to swallow as her eyes and nose were running. "He's ten now… I didn't know which street it was on. I wish I'd…" Her voice broke as she began crying. She leaned down and held her face in her hands, her back shaking as she cried. Mark didn't know what to do, he held a hand over her back, but didn't know if it was alright to touch her, what she might do.

Suddenly there were sounds in the hallway. It sounded like a group of people coming down the stairs. Mark felt his stomach drop, and he quickly put an arm around Stacey's back. He whispered into her ear,

"Shhhh… shhhhh… its ok. Please, stop crying. Please, don't cry. Your parents are ok, you're worrying too much. Your brother too. They're ok. Just please stop crying, it's ok. Shhhhhh… just be quiet. Please, please don't make any noise."

Stacey swallowed and sniffed, and Mark kept his arm around her and his head close to hers. He could hear her breathing through her mouth, trying not to make any noise. There was moaning outside the door, it sounded like several people. One person moaned, followed by another and another. They walked down the hallway, dragging their feet and dragging themselves against the walls. Neither Mark nor Stacey looked up toward the door. Mark was still whispering ever so silently into her ear,

"Its ok… they won't find us. Its alright…"

"Stop." Stacey whispered back. "I'm done now. Stop talking to me like that."

"Sorry." Mark said, woken out of his comforting mode. He let go of her and gave her some space. The moaning outside in the hallway eventually stopped, though they could still hear the footsteps and the movement out there.

"You do realize we may never get out of here?" Mark whispered. Stacey raised her shoulders and head to respond, but with her eyes planted on the ground, she didn't.

The room was gray and dim, and the walls were damp, as several piping fixtures seemed to be leaking where they met the concrete. There was a small clipboard attached the wall that kept track of inventory, but it was useless now. The light yellow wooden crates and brown cardboard boxes were the only furniture for the two teenagers. The steel gray door was their only protection from the outside, which was reinforced by a solid wooden crate that stood about three and a half feet off the ground. They were safe, virtually, and what were on the other side of the door seemed to have given up. There were only the uneven footsteps now, and the occasional stumble, as two must have walked into each other.

Mark sat on his side, in the corner. Shadows cast down on his face from the overhead light as his head was leaned back against the wall but stared forward at Stacey. She was eating a package of crackers. Mark had never, in his life, spent this much time alone with a girl. It wasn't how he had envisioned it, though. He imagined smiling, kissing, touching, falling asleep together, happiness. He imagined it would happen someday. The perfect girl would find him, or would he find her? They would go on dates, she would find him humorous, he would find her beautiful and flattering, and they would love each other… or something. Would that actually ever happen for him? It sounded like a fantasy, like many other things he thought happened to everyone and would happen to him, but later found out to be a lie.

"I want… I wanna ask you something." He began to Stacey, and she looked to him. "I want to know what you think of me."

"You're a nice guy… I mean, you never really talked much." She paused to think for a moment. "A few times I tried to ask you something during class, but you seemed like surprised. You would just answer the question as fast as you could and go back to what you were doing." She finished. That was more than Mark expected her to say.

"I did? Was I an… an asshole?"

"No! No." She laughed at the seriousness in his tone. "You were never an asshole, you were just… different. You never wanted to be with the rest of us. I didn't think you did it to be mean."

"I didn't." Mark said, and he noticed he was shaking his leg. It was a habit he had. "I know now, we can say anything now. Before I was scared anything I said to you, or any girls really, would make me look stupid, or you wouldn't like me if I said something."

"Oh." She said, sensing why he asked what she thought of him. "You shouldn't worry what other think about you."

"I know. People say that all the time, but I can't just change. I am scared…" He stopped. He had admitted something he didn't want to by mistake. "I'm scared of just asking a girl out, or even talking to her. I'm scared I'll be stuck like this."

"Don't worry Mark. You won't." After Stacey finished her sentence, the moaning and rasping at the door was back.

Mark looked to the door, almost indifferent to it now. He knew they couldn't get in. This was going nowhere though. The rasping and moaning had woken him up again, woken him up from his anxiety with Stacey and his inability to share any of his feelings. He wondered how long he would be down here with her, talking to her, her not suddenly falling in love with him, with the constant threat of flesh-hungry zombies on the other side of the door. It wasn't as hopeless as it was aggravating now.

"Stacey." Mark said over the moaning, still sitting with his knees up to his chest in the corner. She looked to him, her face scared.

"Do you like me?"

"What? Why are you asking me this?"

"Because this is a life or death situation. And I want to know if you like me."

"How can I answer you now? Don't you hear them?"

"Did you like me back in school?"

"Yeah, a little."

"But I wasn't like someone you could approach?"

"Yeah, something like that."

"Ok."

Mark didn't say anything else, and Stacey just watched him as the moaning and scratching at the door continued. He didn't seem to be affected at all by it as he brooded in his corner, one hand over his mouth as he stared at the wall. All this time, she realized what it was now. In school it was his weakness, but here it was his strength. He could detach himself from everything but his own thoughts.

The episode eventually passed as the moaning and panic behind the door stopped.

"They won't leave now." Mark said. "We can either stay in here till they rot, someone comes and kills them, or we go out there and die. Which one do you think is better?"

"We're not going to die."

"Sure. I'm sorry Stacey."

"Why?"

"I just am, because I can't do anything."

Stacey got up and sat next to him after he said that. She handed him her package of crackers and he took them. They sat still there together for so long they fell asleep.

There was the sound of gunshots from far away. They woke up Mark from his dreamless sleep, and he noticed Stacey was asleep against him. Something felt different, as if it were midnight and everything in the world were still. Except he could hear gunshots far away, what sounded like a small army. He whispered to Stacey to get up, but it took a shaking of his shoulder to wake her. She let out a drowsy yawn and her eyes were squinted. Mark got up and stood in front of the wooden crate reinforcing the door. He placed his hands on one board making up a rim on the top, and with all of his might, grunting, he slowly ripped it off, nails and all. Stacey's mouth opened. Mark then pulled the crate out from in front of the door and put his ear against the cold steel door. It was too cold though, and he immediately recoiled back. Instead of placing his ear to the door, he just stood there listening to the silence between him and the gunfire. After a minute he decided he couldn't hear any footsteps in the hallway.

"We can leave, those gunshots attracted them somewhere else."

"Are you sure? What if they're still out there?"

"They aren't." Mark said, though he wasn't convinced himself. He knew this was a chance, and if they waited it might go away. He wasn't going to let it go.

So with nail and board in-hand, he slowly unlocked the door and pulled it open a crack. He prepared himself for a ghoulish face to press itself in through the door, for something to attack. Nothing greeted him though, not a sound but the hum of the pipes overhead in the hallway. He took Stacey's hand, he didn't think to ask her, and she didn't object, and they walked upstairs.

Upstairs was even more of a mess than before. Now aisles lay completely toppled, and Mark and Stacey had to climb over them. The thick mist that had permeated the shop before was gone, now everything was crisp and focused. Everything Mark though about was how he was going to make it the next two minutes, how he was going to hold onto Stacey and get wherever they were going.

They found the shopkeeper by the door, which was just a frame that had been completely ripped apart and bent. The man was a mangled mess, and Stacey had to keep her hand over her mouth as she almost dry-heaved. Mark stared down at the shopkeeper's body, apathetic mostly. He thought he felt bad, but then at the same time, he just leaned down and picked up the shotgun beside the old man's body. It had blood all over the handle, which he wiped off on his shirt.

"Where are we going?" Mark whispered to Stacey, not moving his head as he examined the gun. She looked up from the body at him. He was standing there with a bloodied shirt, holding up and observing a large black shotgun that he'd taken from the mutilated body of a man who'd spoken to him only a few hours ago.

"I want to find my parents." She responded quietly.

Mark glanced at her, then down at the shopkeeper's body. He took Stacey's hand as they carefully stepped over the corpse, and leaned down to get out of the shop's twisted and destroyed front door.


	2. The Hospital

**1:00 AM**

Mark awoke in a bed, white sheets hung all around it. He couldn't remember falling asleep or how he'd gotten here. Strangely, he couldn't speak or move. It felt as if his body were detached, like he was still asleep. And his head felt weightless, like he was just a thought without any physical attachments. This detached feeling didn't make him feel happy, but it didn't hurt either. He thought it wouldn't be so bad to stay like this forever, surrounded by white curtains and a white ceiling. Nothing would ever bother him again.

Maybe that hopeful thought was what caused the white curtains to separate and dim the white world he was laying in. Suddenly the feeling of weightlessness was replaced with a feeling of growing cold, and suddenly he realized he had a body. It ached.

When he tried to move his arms, he found his wrists were bound. And when he tried to move his legs, his ankles too. The white curtains separated and he suddenly remembered Raccoon City. He couldn't make out the figure over him. His back twisted and wanted to crawl down through and out of the bed as he felt hands touching him. He could have sworn he screamed, but as soon as he thought he had, he could make out her face from the darkness.

Stacey was untying his hands and feet. She pulled something out of his arm, a needle and a tube. She bent over his side and untied them and he felt as if he wanted to cry. Where had she come from? How had they gotten here?

"Are you okay?" She asked.

"I… eaah…Slll…tacey…"

She looked down into his dark-circled eyes. His mouth had been open the whole time he was asleep, and he had apparently forgotten how to speak.

"Mark?" She asked, unsure of his condition.

"Huuullp…" He said.

She put her arms around his shoulders and lifted him up so he was sitting on the hospital bed. His sides felt as if they had been stabbed, and he could feel liquids draining from wherever down into his abdomen. His head was light, he felt faint. He wanted to go back to lying down on the bed.

"Here, I got you your pants, and a new shirt."

Stacey leaned down and brought up his jeans and t-shirt. She laid them on his lap, and he tried to grasp them but his hands were asleep.

"Mark, are you okay?"

He looked at her for a moment, and when he tried to form some words, it felt as if his tongue were a limp slug in his mouth. He simply tried to just stand, and he almost fell to his knees, but she caught him.

"Go in the bathroom and change." She said as she lifted him up straight and led him to the small bathroom. He went inside and shut the door.

What the hell had happened? He looked at himself in the mirror and saw he was blank white and his hair was stiff like straw. Leaning in, it looked as if his skin was dead. He looked really dead, he thought. He couldn't have really looked dead though. She wouldn't have helped him if he did. No, he wasn't dead. Instead, he leaned over into the toilet bowl and threw up. Then he washed his face and stared long and hard at it, and concluded he still looked alive. He drank from the faucet. Stacey knocked on the door and asked if he was still okay. He said yes and put on his clothes, the shirt which was too big on him anyway.

"Stacey…" He said as he had stepped out and stood staring at her.

"Does it fit?" She asked, a little uncomfortable at the silence he was leaving as he stared.

"Uh… no, not really."

"Oh, well it was the best I could find." She said, a hint of an anxious laugh in her voice.

"No, thanks." He said, and looked about the room. "We're in the hospital?"

"Yeah. You probably don't remember."

"What?"

"You got knocked out. Actually you almost got strangled!"

"What? How?"

"It's too much to go into now, but I'll tell you later. Right now we need to leave. This place has gotten really creepy."

"Why was I locked down?"

"Because they thought you might die and come back."

"They thought I'd become a zombie? Was I bitten?"

"You were pretty beaten up and sick looking, but you're okay now, right?"

"Yeah. I'm great."

She smiled.

"Yeah, let's go going." Mark said.

"Okay."

They went to the door and Stacey unlocked it. "You might want to take that thing with you. I don't feel safe around here." She said as she was opening the door, pointing to a metal pipe she'd left in the corner. He took it, and she opened the door.

The hospital corridor was in disarray with equipment and supplies knocked over in the middle of the hall. There was no one around, and things were silent except for an intercom in the distance that Mark could not make out what was being said.

"Is there anyone in the hospital?"

"Not that many, but it's like a safe house. They're all on the first floor around the lobby." Stacey whispered.

"How long have I been asleep?"

"Almost for five hours."

She started walking more quickly down the hall, and he caught up to follow by her side. Mark could observe smeared handprints of grime and dried blood on the wall. The elevator had similar stains on it, more worn and torn, and it had one flickering light over the chipped beige doors.

"Let's take the stairs." Mark suggested, but as soon as he did and turned his head to them, he found a fence had been pulled down over them.

Then the elevator chimed, and the doors opened, and they turned to see a stretcher being pushed out of it. A writhing, moaning person was tied down, pale and covered in sweat, a doctor jogging and pushing the stretcher down the hall as he yelled medical jargon to a nurse lagging behind. A door down the hall was opened and the patient rushed inside.

"Jesus…" Mark said under his breath.

"Come on." Stacey asked.

They called the elevator. Waiting for it, Mark suddenly remembered just how lonely his life had been up until this last series of hours that had been burning.

He now remembered what Stacey meant about him being almost strangled. He remembered they were running through a construction project because it was a shortcut to the Police Department. He had been leading the way, feeling like this was what he was meant to do, lead them to safety, just them, together:

* * *

"The RPD is a way's off, but if we cut through this site we can make it through some narrow back streets and get there in like half an hour." Mark said as he stepped over some twisted steel rods sticking out of the cement.

He took Stacey's hand and led her over the rods and they jumped from cement patch to cement patch. Mark was getting a little winded carrying the shotgun in his hands, but he'd never felt so full of purpose like this.

"The hospital's around here too, so's the clock tower. You know this part of Raccoon?"

"No." Said Stacey, not quite feeling as talkative as her leader.

"I actually grew up in this part of town. We moved down closer to the high school when I was about eleven." He said, hopping over a low red beam.

As he was speaking he was oblivious to a string of saliva that fell down next to his elbow that Stacey suddenly caught as she saw light reflect off of it like a tendril from a spider's web. Mark looked back to her, a smile almost on his face from the childhood memories he was thinking of, and wondered why she looked so concerned all of a sudden.

"What?" He asked.

Then the eyeless thing above him let out a low hiss, and with a snap it shot out its tongue, wrapping it around its victim's neck in an instant. Mark gasped his last breath of air and was hoisted off his feet. He dropped the shotgun immediately and grabbed at the tongue, trying desperately not to suffocate or have his head pulled off as he rose into the darkness above.

"Mark!" Stacey screamed and jumped over the beam between them.

She saw him being pulled up and leaned down to grab the shotgun. Held it awkwardly in her arms and aimed it up into the darkness. How would she stop it from hitting Mark? Would she kill him too if she shot? Shotguns were shot out many bullets at once she remembered. But he was almost totally in the darkness now, his legs the only part of him still left and they were disappearing too. She aimed the barrel up into the air away from where she inferred he was from his dangling legs and pulled the trigger. Then she pumped it and shot again, and again.

Mark came falling down as there was a high-pitched screech from up in the blackness of the red beams. He hit the ground feet first and collapsed. Stacey immediately dropped the shotgun and cradled his head in her lap and tried to check if he had a pulse. His face was red and swollen, and his neck was contorted and had deep red stripes around it. She feared his neck was broken.

But there came another screech from above and she looked up and feared the monster would come down. She wrapped both arms underneath Mark's shoulders and around his chest, dragging him out of the construction area as fast and hard as she could. He was unconscious the whole time.

"Mark… Mark…" She kept whispering as she dragged him away from the skeleton of the building and along the fenced and tarped area leading down the road. She could hear helicopters passing overhead and gunshots and all the ambience of a chaotic battlefield in the distance. But she was off in some distant land from that.

She dragged him through three blocks of dirt and unpaved road until they reached the side of the hospital and the park, and she found a barricade of cars parked in front of the main doors.

"Help!" She cried. But no one came out.

She dragged Mark over the cars and to the front doors. And she banged on the front doors and yelled for help. It seemed like an eternity before she saw someone move in front of the lights shining out of the barricaded windows. There was the sound of dismantling and one door slowly came ajar, and they were let in.

* * *

Before that, Mark remembered looking back from time to time and seeing Stacey there behind him as they trekked through the streets. He was in love with her. He thought he was in love with her. He wanted to be in love with her. She was going to be the last girl he was ever this close to. Now when he looked back at her under the dim lights of the elevator, he hoped she felt something similar. But from all Mark could remember of the incident, he was climbing through some metal beams when something like a slimey muscle suddenly wrapped around his neck. He dropped the shotgun and didn't hear it hit the ground. All he heard was blood rushing into his ears and then complete silence as he brought his hands up his neck to try to pry at this thing cutting off the air and blood to his brain. From there on he only remembered his eyes feeling like they would burst, and darkness.

Now as the elevator doors opened, Mark and Stacey saw a few people scattered about the small front lobby, most wounded. They lay in any place they could find, and the few nurses and medical personnel attending to them were not enough, because as he stepped out of the elevator Mark could see one boy, his age, lying seemingly dead in a corner. His skin was a greenish-pale white, and his arms were pulled over the top of his head, his eyes closed. No one else seemed to notice him.

"That's… Jimmy Tansel." Stacey said, looking at the boy.

"He was in my Chemistry class." Mark replied, as he walked toward him.

"Jimmy." Mark said, bending down in front of him. "Jimmy." Mark touched his shoulder.

Jimmy suddenly lowered his arms and looked straight up at Mark, his light blue eyes pinkish and watery. Mark almost felt his heart skip a beat as he jumped.

"Who're you?" Jimmy asked.

"It's Mark."

"Mark…" He said, his voice trailing on the name.

"You look pretty sick man."

"I feel like shit."

"How long have you been here?"

"I dunno… I really can't remember."

Mark looked back up to Stacey.

"Hey, Stacey's here too."

"Stacey…" Jimmy said faintly. "I… I can't see you guys. You're all blurry."

"We've gotta get you a doctor. I can't believe they haven't given you a room." Stacey said. She turned and called for a doctor.

"No! No, I don't need a doctor. Hey, Mark, stop her."

Mark turned and walked to Stacey, who was talking to a man over by the lobby's main desk.

"He says he doesn't want a doctor." Mark said to Stacey and the man who must have been a doctor.

"Let me take a look." He said anyway.

"He's over there." Stacey said, and she pointed to Jimmy in the corner.

The man walked over to Jimmy and pulled out a pen-flashlight. He kneeled down in front of him and introduced himself.

"My name's George. Just hold still for a moment."

"I really don't need any help." Jimmy said as George tilted his head back, and lifted back one eye-lid and shone the light into it.

"It's fine." George said. He held up Jimmy's wrist and felt his pulse. It was weak and his skin was cold. "You need rest. Come on we've got to get you to a room."

"No!" Jimmy snapped and yanked his wrist free.

"Jimmy, he's a doctor." Stacey pleaded.

"I don't need a bed. I'm fine right here!"

George leaned in close to talk low to Jimmy.

"Look, you're showing symptoms of the disease. I want you in a room for their safety just as much as yours. You can be treated more easily through an IV."

"No!" Jimmy yelled and weakly pushed away George.

"Hey!" Mark barked as he approached the doctor. George stood there for a moment and sighed.

"He doesn't want treatment."

"Why don't you just leave him here then." Mark quipped defensibly.

George sighed again.

"Fine. Fine…"

Stacey held her hands up to her chest as there was nothing she could do to make Jimmy understand, and she wanted to say something as George walked by. He made quick eye contact with her then looked off and went on.

"Mark!" She hissed.

"What?" Mark asked. Then he sat down next to Jimmy.

"Are you sure you're alright?"

"No way… I'm dying man… But I'm not gonna die in some hospital bed like that. And I don't feel like getting up. It just hurts less if I don't move."

"Alright then."

"Can you guys just stay here for a little while? Till I fall asleep or something?"

"Alright."

Mark wasn't feeling so great himself. He leaned back against the wall next to Jimmy, and watched as his friend closed his eyes and his mouth slowly came open. Mark could hear him breathing heavily. He looked up to Stacey and she looked pretty upset, her hands folded over her stomach. He frowned and shrugged his shoulders, and she looked off and sat down on the lobby's bench.

There must have been a moment when he dozed off, because Mark suddenly found himself sitting next to Jimmy and feeling panicked. Looking around with his mind buzzing as if he'd just been pulled out of a dream, he saw Stacey asleep on the bench, and the few others in the lobby asleep also. All he could remember was the last instant when he'd saw her sit down on the bench. He looked over to Jimmy and didn't hear the loud breathing he had before. Oh, no, he thought. Slowly, he held a hand underneath Jimmy's open mouth and nostrils. He could feel faint warm breath.

He quietly got up and besides his sore body, he felt hungry and empty. He put his hand underneath Stacey's shoulder and sat her up. She opened her eyes and hit him across the face.

"Oh! I'm so sorry!" She said with her hand over her mouth. She was terrified at realizing she'd hit him, and was trying not to laugh.

"It's okay…" Mark replied, rubbing his cheek.

"You scared me!" She said.

"Shhh… let's go find some food." He said, and took her hand.

* * *

"How could that have been him?" Mark stated in the dark back office. He bit into the apple and found the first bite to be brown and rotten.

"Mark…" Stacey began. She stopped.

"What?" He asked as he spit out the mush.

She tensed her brow, and sucked in the edges of her lips. She didn't want to say what she was going to say.

"I had to give up finding my parents to bring you here."

"When I blacked out you mean?"

"Yeah."

She remembered him being pulled up into the darkness, something like a worm wrapped around his neck. His legs were shaking back and forth and he was holding onto the worm pulling him up into the red beams and the pitch black. She screamed for Mark, but he was being pulled farther up into the darkness, and for a moment he was going to be lost. She picked up the shotgun he had dropped and aimed it up at the darkness and shot as many times as she could before he fell down. It was only a few seconds, and no more than three shots, the last that were left, but the thought of him being lost made her realize.

Mark, the quiet guy from school, a guy she had been curious about, but never really paid much attention to. She didn't know who he was, or what he was like, and never thought much more beyond that little question mark. But now the last hours, when she was in the room with him, and he put his arm around her and tried to quiet her when they were just outside the door, when she saw him staring solemnly at the wall, unaffected by their terrifying cries and scratching at the door, when he was ready to lead her to find her parents and they stepped out of the shop's broken doorway, and when she thought she would suddenly lose him to some fiend hidden up in the depths of some half-constructed building, she realized.

"Mark."

"What?" He asked again, staring at her over the apple he was biting into. She felt weak at his matter-of-factness.

"I love you."

Tension and fear filled his heart at those words.

"I love you, Mark."

The words he'd longed to hear. They weren't true. They couldn't be.

"You dragged me to the hospital?" Was all he could muster in response, dropping his food on the desk he was leaning back on.

She stared at him, the dark green corneas in her eyes perfect circles and the hair around her face the darkest and brownest it had ever been. Words were useless now.

"Mark, you saved me."

"But you couldn't get to the Police Department."

"But we can. We can still go. I know you now Mark. I know you're strong, and you don't like to admit it or talk about how you feel, but I know who you are." And she knew he wouldn't kiss her first. So she came in next to him, and put a hand behind his ear and kissed him.

He was scared, but he didn't stop her. He let her kiss him, and then when he felt her arms around him and her body in his hands, and felt his heart beating fast and his body tense, he remembered he was himself. Why should he be scared of this?


End file.
